Understood At Last
by pointy22
Summary: What would happen if Seras was sent after Rip instead of Alucard? Will two broken beings become whole by the other or will hatred be the only thing they can feel? Mention of rape, you are warned.


**_Note:_****_ I did NOT write this story, my friend Wolf did as a birthday present for me. So I hope you like it as much as I did!_**

**_Also go thank Lonewolf685 for the awesome fluff!_**

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A fire raged on the horizon, plumes of flame erupting across London visible in the clear night's sky. The Adler was motionless upon the Atlantic sea. Once a proud sea fairing vessel, it groaned under its own weight and struggled to remain afloat.

Hellsing's SR-71 Blackbird was impaled upon the ship's bow, a burning cross standing in condemnation of those who had taken control of the Adler. Its lone and former occupant sat with her legs swinging over the deck's edge, eyes locked on the distant bombastic display. Her once yellow uniform was stained crimson in the blood of Nazis, eyes now a radiant scarlet that bespoke the primal fury boiling beneath her innocent, cockney demeanor.

Seras Victoria languidly licked the last drops of blood from her gloves. The spilt ichor of life that had repulsed her so had become more beloved than the finest wine, though on her salary she would have been hard pressed to afford a decent bottle of champagne. She was so entranced by the taste of iron exploding in her mouth she didn't notice the content smile that settled upon her pale face.

It contrasted the scene of utter devastation that was the rest of the Adler's deck. There were bodies slumped over bannisters. Limbs, scraps of uniforms, and discarded casings littering the majority of the open space save for one semi-circular area against a ship bulkhead.

There, a broken songbird openly wept over its only remains, her cracked glasses and a flintlock musket that had been snapped in two like a twig. The shadow of First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle was on her knees, face buried in her hands as bloody tears stained her gloves and dripped onto the metal beneath that had previously been licked dry.

Seras tore herself away from the distant spectacle and looked at Rip, not threatened by her presence in the slightest. Even with the Harkonnen lying within arm's reach of the fallen officer, the sharp forty five degree angle with which the barrel was bent – After being swung like a club when both marksman had exhausted their ammunition – meant Seras could rest assured no harm would come to her from the ghost ship's other occupant, even if she _could _physically harm her.

"Look, I'm sure it must be traumatic to become a familiar, and not even having a corpse to bury or mourn properly over doesn't help either, but could you please just…I don't know, cry quieter?" Seras said, both agitated and sheepish.

In much the same bipolar fashion with which Rip fought with Seras prior, Rip seamlessly transitioned from bawling over her 'corpse' to shouting at her Seras with unrestrained fury.

Rip stood and stormed over to the police girl, hands balled and ready to strike, and said. "You have the audacity to tell me to cry quieter? Have you _no_ shame?"

"I do, and not particularly." Seras said, extenuating the last remark with an undignified belch. _I knew it was intoxicating, but blood really is like beer._ Seras thought curiously before saying. "Will that be a problem, or would you like me to apologize for killing you?"

"Apologize for killing _me_?" Rip said, her voice a feral growl. "No, I want you to apologize for all the men you killed and Alucard is slaughtering as we speak. They trusted me to deal with Alucard right here, and you show up and ruin our plans, slaughtering all of us!"

Seras' own anger overcame her as she snapped back at the enraged lieutenant. "And you weren't going to slaughter countless people yourself? Get off that high horse, because we all know what Millennium intended to do. Hell," her words were dripping in acid as her lips curled into a wicked sneer, "You should be thankful _I _was the one who killed. Alucard would surely take his time eating a pretty thing like you~"

Just like that, Rip snapped. Overcome by such hate her vision was dyed red she threw a punch at Seras' face with all her vampiric might, but Seras didn't even so much as bat an eyelash at the attack. Millimeters from grazing her cheek, Rip's hand lost all momentum and went dead still. Further enraged Rip tried to strike Seras with her other hand to similar effect.

"Tsk. Tsk." Seras clucked her tongue and let the hostility she held before slip away be replaced with a look of pity. "It must be _dreadful_ to not be able to so much as raise a vengeful hand against your killer, but then again, I'm more than that to you. Your soul is mine, and I am its master. Projecting yourself into the world through shadows is by my power, not yours. Unless I tell you, and I doubt I will, you will never be able to directly hurt me~"

With each word Rip seemed visibly struck, once again changing from uncontrolled rage to bottomless despair, and sank to her knees with her hands drawn back to her sides. Her chest heaved, but no tears were shed. To Seras it seemed like she had run out.

"You monster…" Rip said half-heartedly, her strength wearing thin. "Why did you do this?"

"Why did I kill the Nazis who hijacked a British ship? I thought that would be obvious." Seras replied.

"No!" Rip said. With a sigh she lifted her head to look Seras right in her ruby eyes. "Why make me…your familiar."

"Chance I gue-"

"Bullshit!" Rip once again did a brief 180o in emotion before returning to her resigned state. "…there has to have been a reason."

Now it was Seras' turn to look resigned. "You want the truth? Well alright, you were right. I'm a monster. I enjoyed tearing apart your men with my hands, I reveled in blowing them to bits with my cannon, and your screams-" Seras paused upon seeing Rip's horrified expression. "-I just wanted to know what it was like to be the monster, and not the victim. For once I held the power and used it however I liked. When I saw you, cowering as the sole survivor, I wanted to kill you, torture you, abuse you…but then I thought of the worst thing of them all, and made you into a monster like myself."

Rip felt so utterly devastated, so defiled, that words failed her and all she could do was stare in abject terror at the once innocent police girl.

Seras chuckled to herself upon a sudden realization. "Guess I'm a real vampire know, just like Alucard wanted. I'm just like _him_."

Rip saw something when Seras said that last remark, a vision not her own. She was seeing through the eyes of someone on the ground, feeling their pain as blood leaking from a wound unseen as she couldn't tear herself away from the horrific sight before her. A man was having sex with a dead woman, whose recently deceased eyes were firmly locked on the person on the ground. 'Mommy', Rip heard the wounded person say, and realized they were a girl. A little girl was watching her dead mother be raped, right up to the point she passed out from blood loss.

Then it was gone, the vision and the pain, but Rip still felt the bile rising up in her throat. Despite this, she would have thought it a delusion if not for the mortified look of Seras'. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Rip asked the only question she could of her master. "What was that?"

"You saw that too?" Seras turned away towards the water. "It's nothing…just forget about it."

For reasons even she didn't comprehend, Rip slowly reached out towards Seras. "Was that a memory of yours?"

"Please, drop it."

Rip kept reaching for her, now edging closer as well. "Since we're connected, it would make sense I'd see your inner working as I've been absorbed into your soul, but if that's the case-"

"For the last time just shut the Hell-"

Contact. Rip's hand firmly planted itself on Seras' shoulder and silenced her enraged command. She turned around and found Rip looked at her with something that wasn't hatred or resignation, but something softer.

"I'm sorry, Seras. I understand how much that must hurt." Rip said with absolute honesty.

Seras narrowed her eyes and glared back at Rip. "You think you're the first to say that? Everyone has and everyone's lied."

"Seras, I'm not sure what kind of education you've had, but I was born in post World War one Germany, and it was Hell." Rip clasped the swastika dangling from its chain in her free hand. "We may both disagree with his views and beliefs, but Hitler revived my country from the battered state it was left in. If I hadn't joined the military, I'd still be in the same brothel my mother worked, but instead of watching my mother be violated by countless men I'd be the one on the bed. So I do understand your pain. It burns into your very being and haunts you."

Rip tucked the chain back into her suit and wrapped her now free arm around Seras. "You can't understand why they did that, can you? How someone could be so depraved as to violate a mother's corpse."

Seras twisted around in Rip's embrace so she could rest her head against Rip's shoulder, bloody tears trickling across her face. "No."

"So in order to make sense of it all, you tried to become _like _them. Sure you resisted, became a copper like your father, but in the end you always wanted to know…"

"What it's like being a monster…" Seras said flatly. "I can understand why he killed my dad, but…the things he did to mum…I just couldn't get why until know. I'm so sorry I did this to you Rip. I'm so, so sorry."

"Shhh." Rip hushed her, running a hand soothingly across her back. "It's in our nature. Victims of bullying are more susceptible to becoming a bully. Captives sometimes embrace their captor's views in cases of Stockholm syndrome. The abused will grow to be abusers, because more than wanting the pain to stop we want to inflict it back on others so they can understand."

"And vampires," Rip said as Seras began to bawl into her shoulder. "Vampires always make more vampires. Man may be the only ones to kill a vampire, but they are also the only to become vampires. Deep down, we want to understand why they do the things they do. Because when you're understood, you're no longer alone."

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**Me: Awesome! Thanks Wolfy!**

**Krysta: That was sweet in a weird way**

**And again Tell Wolf how the story was!**


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